


They Say the More You Fly, The More You Risk Your Life

by littlemel



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Gen, Platonic Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 06:35:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3239897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemel/pseuds/littlemel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a chance, Bob knows, that the surgery won't work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They Say the More You Fly, The More You Risk Your Life

**Author's Note:**

> For [](http://earlofcardigans.livejournal.com/profile)[**earlofcardigans**](http://earlofcardigans.livejournal.com/) , with big, squishy love-feelings, and with thanks to [](http://harborshore.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://harborshore.livejournal.com/)**harborshore** for the read-through. Title from "Just Looking" by Stereophonics. Originally posted November 29, 2009.

"Hey, can I bum one of those?" Frank steps into the dark front lounge and nods at Bob's pack of Marlboros on the table. The partition rattles shut behind him. "I'm out."

Bob lights the cigarette in his mouth and shakes the empty pack, loose tobacco jangling around inside. "S'my last one til we stop in the morning." He exhales at the ceiling. "Sorry, dude. Ask Gee?"

Frank screws up his face, glancing back towards the bunk area. "Nah, he just finally got to sleep, I don't wanna wake him up digging around in his bunk." He scratches at the back of his neck, eyeing Bob's hand. "Just lemme have a couple drags?"

Bob squints through the smoke clouding the small space and thinks about opening the window, about how tired Frank looks, how tired they all are. Sharing his last smoke is the least Bob can do. He concedes with a nod, holds the cigarette out between his first two fingers.

Frank takes it with a quiet "thanks, man," and slips into the seat next to him, snugging in against Bob's side. He's been clingy and quiet for days, wallowing in a nasty bout of homesickness.

It still hits Frank first and hardest, and it sets the rest of them off, triggering a series of phone calls to moms or girlfriends or friends whose texts they've been meaning to answer. Bob's been playing phone-tag with his mom for three days. He'll try her again later.

"Crack the window a little?" Frank asks, waving his hand through the haze. The tip of the cigarette glows bright orange when he pulls in another lungful of smoke.

Bob yanks the window open an inch, cringing at the rush of cold air and the pang in his wrist. He sits back, flexing his fingers carefully. They've been chasing a storm for three days, and the wet weather makes everything ache deeper and longer and worse than usual. Ash flutters down to the table as Frank passes the cigarette back. His fingertips linger on Bob's wrist, cool and soft.

"Hurts?"

Bob's pulse jumps when Frank's thumb sweeps over it and he shrugs, pulls his hand back. "It always hurts."

"You're gonna get that surgery, though, right?"

Bob half-nods. "I know I'm just fucking my shit up worse playing every night, but. You know."

"Yeah," Frank smirks, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. He knows.

They all know, what you do when you love something: you give it everything you have and then just a little bit more; you do it until it breaks you. And then you patch yourself up and do it again.

They're coming up on the last few shows of the tour, and for the first time since any of them have been doing this, there's not another one lined up after it. There's nothing. Bob wonders if any of them will even know what to do with themselves after a few weeks, if they even know how to just _live_ , at home like normal people. Do things like sleep in their own beds for more than a few nights at a stretch, buy real food; actually unpack instead of recycling the same duffel bag's worth of clothes. Take the time to rest, to recharge, to mend.

There's a chance, Bob knows, that the surgery won't work. That he'll never pick up a pair of sticks again after this tour. He could always go back to doing sound, he guesses, or tour managing; maybe give producing a shot. Make a decent living either way, and still be involved in music. But he's never been as happy doing anything else as he's been behind his kit, so he's gonna play every damn show like it's his last, until it is.

The one time he brought it up to Gerard was after he first met with the surgeon; the list of Things That Could Go Very Wrong was still fresh in Bob's memory, but Gerard didn't want to hear the glass-half-empty side.

"It's not going to happen, okay?" he said matter-of-factly. "It's just not."

And that was that. When Gerard was done talking about something, he was done talking about it. Shit, he hasn't talked about Bert in three years.

Even Ray, usually the logical one in almost any situation, went all Zen Master when Bob mentioned it. "You can't go into something like that like thinking it's not gonna work, you know? Or it's not gonna work." Ray tapped his temple. "It's a mental thing."

He was right, of course, but the problem wasn't Bob's lack of faith in modern medical technology or his own ability to heal. The problem was that _he might not_. And he needed to know what happened to his band, if that happened to him.

He tried talking to Mikey about it, a couple nights ago when they were the last two up. Skipped the bullshit and just asked flat-out, his eyes glued to the TV, if they'd get another drummer.

"You know," Bob said, "If the surgery doesn't work."

Mikey sat up, his face contorted like Bob had just kicked him in the nuts for no reason. "What, no-" He shook his head, blinking hard and fast. "We're a _family_ , dude. You don't just... _replace_ a brother," he scoffed. "No."

Bob bit down on the inside of his cheek, caught halfway between blind fucking terror at having the future of the whole band on his shoulders (not an entirely unfamiliar feeling, but not exactly a welcome one, either) and stupid, grateful tears.

He doesn't even have to wonder what Frank would say, if he brought it up now. Frank would tell him exactly what Mikey did: that they all go down together; that this is a family as much as a band; that you do right by your brothers, no matter what. And if it was any of the rest of them in his shoes, Bob knows he would feel the same way and say the same things. The landscape's just a little different when you're looking out from the problem instead of into it.

Bob takes one more drag of the cigarette--it's burnt down almost to the filter, shit--and holds it out for Frank. Frank shakes his head, still rubbing at his eyes, and Bob drops the butt into a soda can. It fizzles out with a hiss, and they sit in the dark for a minute, letting the bus jostle them gently against each other. Then Frank sighs, leans his elbows on the table to scrub his hands over his cheeks.

"You doing okay, Frankie?" Bob asks.

Frank hums, cracks a thin, humorless smile between his fingers. "I'm fucking _tired_ , man." His voice is shot, gravelly with too many late nights and too many cigarettes, too many miles from home.

Bob cuffs his hand over the back of Frank's neck. The muscles there are stiff, tight, and Bob digs his fingers in, rubs soothing circles with his thumb. "Me too."

Frank's hands fall away from his face, and he turns to burrow in under Bob's chin, gathering handfuls of Bob's hoodie like a cat kneading its claws. Bob ducks in, closes his eyes when Frank's mouth smears across his chin. His fingers push into Frank's hair and Frank's mouth parts under his, smoky and sleep-sour at the corners. Bob breaks off, grinning, at the touch of Frank's tongue to his lip ring.

"Don't get fresh," he laughs, tugging lightly at Frank's hair. "I'd like to get _some_ sleep before the next town."

"Hey, you started it." Frank bites at the angle of Bob's jaw, a quick sting of teeth, and shoves Bob away. "Cocktease."

Bob rolls his eyes and shoves back. "Go to bed."

" _You_ go to bed," Frank says, but he's already sliding out of the seat. He yawns and stretches his arms over his head, flashing a sliver of skin and ink when his shirt rides up. "And put your fucking brace on, would you? You're not allowed to fall apart before this tour's over."

"Yes, Mom."

Frank nods and braces a hand on the table, leans in to stamp a loud, wet kiss to Bob's temple. "Night, man. Love you."

Bob pats Frank's side, touches his forehead to Frank's. "You too, Frankie."

Frank disappears back into the bunk area with a smile and a wave, and Bob stares at the partition as it closes, trying to picture someone else sleeping in his bunk, someone else's kit on stage. Someone else staying up too late talking with Gee or playing video games with Mikey, someone else squashed between Ray and Frank in a group hug, someone else yielding to Frank's need for affection, for the comfort of contact when he gets lonely.

He tries to imagine his life without all those things, and the stitch in his chest is colder and sharper than anything he's ever felt in his wrists. He picks up a couple of Gee's pencils from the table and drums out a soft, easy beat on the edge, gritting his teeth through the straining ache.

Someone coughs from their bunk, and Bob sets the pencils down, tips his head back. He just listens instead, to the cadence of everyone's breathing and the road under the tires; to his own heartbeat, thumping in counterpoint, just out of rhythm.


End file.
